1. Mode Analytics: Fair warning — you can spend hours with this visualization of where college basketball teams recruit. The only thing that I’d like to see from this is more years included. Obviously with relatively small rosters, things will fluctuate. Fun ACC fact number one: Georgia Tech is by far the most local recruiting school with 13 (!) players coming from Georgia (which is one shy of North Carolina, Duke and NC State’s collective haul in North Carolina). Fact number two: Duke doesn’t have more than two players from any given state (and only Illinois and Indiana border one another).
2. Washington Post: Good stuff by Alex Prewitt putting Maryland‘s resume in (damning) context. To make a long story short, Maryland needs to turn things around. The Terps dug a huge hole in non-conference play, which means there’s no margin for error going forward. But as a (gulp) NIT bid becomes the expectation, what does that mean for Mark Turgeon? He’s had three years at Maryland and done well on the recruiting trail, but his teams haven’t been able to live up to their potential. What’s even more concerning is that, apart from his tenure at Wichita State, there’s not an obvious upward trend at Texas A&M or Maryland. Now I’m a firm believer of giving a coach four years except in extraordinary circumstances, but Turgeon’s seat is going to be very warm next year if things don’t improve soon.
3. Charlottesville Daily Progress: Tyler Ennis isn’t the only freshman point guard turning heads in the ACC. London Perrantes has been a pleasant surprise for the Cavaliers in taking over for the offensively challenged Jontel Evans. Perrantes — as shown by the incident with Okaro White (a significantly bigger and older player) — doesn’t have a confidence problem. And what’s scary is Perrantes is an elite free throw shooter. If his jumper starts falling, Virginia will be nearly impossible to guard.
4. Charlotte Observer: North Carolina isn’t an enigma anymore. Right now they just look like a team that isn’t very good. A lot of different people Andrew Carter interviewed talked about the Tar Heels’ toughness. Roy Williams even harkened back to Tyler Hansbrough as a model of a player who didn’t shy away from contact. That said, there’s still plenty of time for this team to turn things around. They have three great non-conference wins and at least three more chances for more marquee victories this season (to go with a very important match-up in Tallahassee). They might not want to exacerbate things by losing to Clemson on Sunday, though.
5. Troy Nunes is an Absolute Magician: As someone who only watched the Big East peripherally, it’s interesting to hear Syracuse discussing whether Pittsburgh is one of its rivals (it actually sounds very similar to Duke fans discussing Maryland). There is also good bit on Dujuan Coleman’s injury impact on Syracuse going forward. And if you still have time, make sure to check out ACC Hustle, a short adapted screenplay of David O’Russell’s most recent film.

1. John Gasaway: Tuesday Truths are back! And with them, some interesting tidbits. Unfortunately, schedules are far from equal this season, but it appears there’s a top tier now separating itself from the pack. That group is Virginia, Syracuse, Pittsburgh and Duke. After Duke’s takedown of Miami in Coral Gables last night, I’d expect that foursome to further distinguish itself. As far as future head-to-head match-ups go, Virginia gets Syracuse at home and Pittsburgh away; Syracuse gets Virginia on the road, Duke at home and away, and Pittsburgh away; Pittsburgh gets Virginia at home, Duke at home and Syracuse at home; and Duke gets Syracuse at home and away and Pittsburgh away. Catch all that? On the surface, this schedule favors the Cavaliers and Panthers in the quest for the ACC’s top seed in Greensboro.
2. Winston-Salem Journal: Don’t look now, but Wake Forest won a conference road game! Sure, it was against a beaten-up Virginia Tech team, but now isn’t the time for qualifiers. It’s a time for celebration. Even better news for the Demon Deacons is that Travis McKie found his shot (he went 5-of-6 from beyond the arc en route to scoring 24 points). The highlight of Dan Collins’ article is the interaction with Jeff Bzdelik, though.
3. WRAL: ACC media legend Caulton Tudor pulled no punches in his preview of North Carolina and Clemson. Weirdly, he also hit Virginia with an undeserved drive-by insult (as mentioned above). But the goods are his discussion of the three shoulda-coulda-woulda games for the Tigers. The first came in 1982 (yep, the national title team with Michael Jordan, Sam Perkins and James Worthy) when Matt Doherty and Jimmy Black dragged the Tar Heels from a 10-point second half deficit to win by five. Both teams should be hungry on Sunday, coming off of bad losses.
4. Testudo Times: Jake Layman is in a slump and has been for the last five games. And his slump is likely symptomatic of and a reason for Maryland’s ACC skid. This team needs his outside shooting to spread the floor for its penetrators and bigs to work. It’s no coincidence that Maryland’s three least efficient offensive outings this season came during that stretch, although the only head-scratcher was this week’s loss at NC State. The Wolfpack are not a great defensive team, but Maryland looked lost for the entire second half.
5. Daily Tar Heel: Here’s an editorial calling for North Carolina to relax its rules on the size of the signs students can bring to the Dean Dome. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m all for letting students bring signs of any size and most any content. But signs won’t erase the “wine and cheese” stereotypes about North Carolina (though the rule certainly enforces them). Letting students vote on ideas to get approved by the athletic department might look like an even more controlled “cheer sheet” that draws so much ire down the road.

When North Carolina was trekking through an up-and-down non-conference season, all of the talk surrounding the Tar Heels was about their inconsistency. Great wins followed by head-scratching losses meant that pundits and fans alike spent their time trying to diagnose the Tar Heels — attempting to figure out which team identity would become the prevailing one. Now, after a 1-4 start in ACC play, talk of inconsistency is a thing of the past. Wins over Michigan State, Louisville, and Kentucky are long forgotten now that UNC has fallen to Wake Forest and Miami in winnable games, was soundly defeated by Syracuse in its first match-up with the new conference member, and was then thrashed by Virginia on Monday night. A solitary win over an uninspiring Boston College team may have allowed temporary relief, but with Carolina now sporting an 11-7 overall record and looking like an unreliable but average team, the question should be raised: Is this the worst team of the Roy Williams era in Chapel Hill?

A frustrating year may lead some to wonder if this is Roy Williams’ least impressive Carolina squad to date. (USA TODAY Sports)

When considering the squads Williams has governed at Carolina (and to his credit, Williams has an aggregate record at the school that speaks for itself), most will point to the 2009-10 season as his worst year at the helm. The Tar Heels failed to make the NCAA Tournament that year, stumbling to an overall 20-17 record (5-11 ACC). That team was crippled by the graduations of three-time All-American Tyler Hansbrough and Danny Green and the early entries of Wayne Ellington and Ty Lawson. While this year’s team lost only Reggie Bullock to the NBA Draft, the ultimate decision to not seek reinstatement for PJ Hairston left the current version of the Tar Heels without two extremely important cogs in their offensive machine. They weren’t the defending national champions by any stretch, but prior to the season they appeared to be a team at least capable of making things interesting in postseason play. Those personnel losses weren’t as substantial, but they have proven very significant in the roster and rotation upheaval they caused Williams’ team.

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Clemson was on quite the roll, coming into Tuesday night at 13-4 overall (4-1 in conference play) and widely regarded as having one of the best defenses in the nation. The Tigers looked poised to make major waves, but then Pittsburgh happened. With its incredibly efficient play on both ends of the court and Jamie Dixon’s tough-minded, physical brand of old school Big East basketball, Pittsburgh handed it to Clemson with a 76-43 thrashing at the Petersen Events Center. This certainly takes some of the wind out of Clemson’s sails after a three-game ACC winning streak, but there are still a number of positives to draw from this group of feisty Tigers that appear to have finally made the turn in Brad Brownell‘s fourth season on campus.

K.J. McDaniels and head coach Brad Brownell (Photo: clemsontigers.com)

This Clemson group was projected by most experts to finish in the bottom three of the ACC standings, but has instead ridden a wave of momentum behind its tenacious and stingy defense to a level of play not seen in the basketball program in quite some time. Offensively, Clemson has been led by its undisputed star and athletic highlight reel machine, K.J. McDaniels, to the tune of 16.4 PPG, 7.0 RPG, and 2.7 BPG. Those well-rounded numbers are first team all-ACC caliber, but he will be facing stiff competition from several of the other elite forwards in the conference (Jabari Parker, CJ Fair, etc.). The real question surrounding Clemson from here on out is if the Tigers can seize the positive momentum it has developed to play with the consistency required to win away from Littlejohn Coliseum? It is easy enough to get hyped up for a sold-out crowd at home versus a program like Duke, but can Brownell’s squad shake off the natural letdown that comes afterward to mentally prepare for those road trips? Coming into this season, Clemson was 5-18 in ACC road games under his direction — the Tigers are 2-1 this season.

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It’s often said that the best way to measure a coach is to look at how his teams perform relative to its talent level. Miami head coach Jim Larranaga has always been well-regarded by using that method of evaluation, and not that anyone should be surprised, but Larranaga is doing it again with his 2013-14 Hurricanes. Back in October, the ACC media tabbed Miami as the 12th best team in the conference. After a shaky 5-5 start to the season, the Hurricanes have now won five of their last seven games, including a solid 2-2 league mark in that stretch. In fact, Miami now looks like it is well on its way to topping its preseason ranking, and the Hurricanes now also have legitimate hopes of reaching postseason play. Let’s take a closer look at how Larranaga has managed to turn things around.

Jim Larranaga is Using a Stingy Zone Defense and Slower Pace to Make Miami Very Competitive.
(Photo: Steve Mitchell / USA TODAY Sports)

It was obvious that this was going to be a rebuilding year after losing five seniors along with ACC Player of the Year Shane Larkin from the greatest Hurricanes team ever. And we also knew that with only four returnees from the 2012-13 ACC champions, it would take them a while to figure out how all the pieces would best fit together. The first 10 games of the season got off to a rocky start with an overtime home loss to St. Francis (NY) and closed with another overtime home loss, this time to league bottom-feeder Virginia Tech. It was at that point when Larranaga decided to try a new defensive game plan in switching to a zone. As a coach who had primarily taught man-to-man defense during his long career, the 64-year old decided to call on a couple of his old coaching buddies for some help. Former Pittsburgh head coach Ralph Willard and Syracuse assistant Bernie Fine each spent a day teaching the details of playing a match-up zone to the Miami coaching staff.

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1. Sports Illustrated: Good stuff on CJ Fair here, whose two sporting idols are Carmelo Anthony and Michael Jordan. Anthony makes sense for a multitude of reasons: Fair is also from Baltimore, has the same Syracuse pedigree, and Anthony has one of the best mid-range games in the world. Jordan? More of a stretch. Here I’ll turn to Kelli Anderson: “A few years ago Fair read an interview in which Jordan was asked how he stayed motivated to give his best effort every single game, even against lesser competition. Jordan’s response: There might be a family out there seeing him for the first time, and he wanted to make a good impression.”
2. Tallahassee Democrat: The end of Florida State’s recent game at Virginia got ugly. After an admittedly unnecessary alley-oop with 18 seconds left, Justin Anderson was called for a technical foul. During the stoppage in play, some players started jawing. As the officials were separating the teams, London Perrantes and Okaro White continued talking and Perrantes appears to have shoved White. White shoved him back, whereupon two Virginia players then left the bench and were ejected. After a lengthy review from the officials, a double-technical was assessed to White (his fifth personal) and Perrantes. After the game in the handshake line, there was a second scuffle catalyzed by more contact between the two. Long story short: White was “publicly reprimanded” by the ACC, but the league won’t take further action.
3. Troy Nunes is an Absolute Magician: Syracuse starting forward Dujuan Coleman is out for the year. To be clear, Coleman starts over Jerami Grant, but Grant plays a far larger role in the Syracuse rotation. Coleman only averaged 13 minutes per game this season, but without him Jim Boeheim effectively plays seven players (and Michael Gbinije has only played between four and 11 minutes in any of the team’s five conference games). That’s not a lot of depth available, which means that four guys are likely to suit up for 30-plus minutes per game from here on out. Depth is overrated — especially on teams that mostly play zone — but the Orange lose much of their wiggle room if a player gets sick, injured, or in foul trouble.
4. Washington Post: Glad to see Mike Wilbon take up for tradition here. Wilbon once worked the Maryland beat and currently serves on the board at Northwestern. He didn’t mince words when talking about Maryland’s move to the Big Ten: “Because if it’s not [a windfall], it just destroys the tradition and the history of rivalries, and the competition, and just says, ‘Okay, let’s pimp ourselves out, we’re going to go for the money.'” What sparked the commentary was NC State fans chanting “A-C-C” in the closing seconds of their win over the Terrapins on Monday night.
5. Tar Heel Blog: Great piece on why Roy Williams didn’t recruit any wing players for this season. The obvious answer is that he didn’t expect to need any with Reggie Bullock and PJ Hairston expected to be available. But the issue is more complex than that, and Brian Barbour does a good job looking at a lot of different angles here. Recruiting issues tend to play out a couple of years later (except at Kentucky), but right now, I tend to agree with the theory that North Carolina is suffering because of early defections (both transfers and departures for the NBA) along with a couple of players who haven’t developed like Williams hoped.

VIDEO EXTRA: Mark Gottfried was psyched after NC State’s win without TJ Warren.

1. Troy Nunes is an Absolute Magician: Here’s a good brief context piece on where Syracuse is this season. The national media has started paying attention to college basketball again, and not surprisingly, as one of the best teams in the country, Syracuse has been getting its fair share of love. So has Tyler Ennis. But we’re just now getting to the point in the season where people start talking about undefeated seasons. Here’s where I (mostly) side with Sean Keeley: Syracuse isn’t going undefeated. Trips to Pittsburgh, Duke, Virginia and Florida State all but guarantee that. In fact, four of the team’s last five games are on the road. My only disagreement is that I think Wichita State has a reasonably good chance to finish the regular season undefeated. Not a great chance, but not zero either. Keeley nails everything else.
2. Charleston Post and Courier: Don’t look now but Clemson is 4-1 in conference play. Yep, the same Clemson we picked eighth and the conference media picked –gulp, 14th — is tied for second in the loss column (along with Pittsburgh and Virginia). That said, it’s about to get real for the Tigers. They play five of their next six games on the road, including trips to Pittsburgh, North Carolina, Florida State and Syracuse. Yeesh. The most winnable game there looks like — double gulp — at North Carolina? Clemson has to find a way to keep its collective head over the next couple of weeks, or our 7-9 finish with a trip to the NIT prediction might not look too far off.
3. Tallahassee Democrat: Florida State’s Boris Bojanovsky and Michael Ojo are totally different players this season, but Tony Bennett did a good job shutting the pair down by doubling them every time they got the ball in the post. I’m not sure how long the tactic will be effective though because both players measure over seven feet. So long as they keep their heads about them when doubled, they should be able to pass out to an open player. But if this proves an effective strategy for other teams (which admittedly won’t have double-teams as readily accessible as Bennett’s pack-line), it could spell trouble for the Seminoles.
4. Real GM: Awesome stuff from Dan Hanner, who took a look at how teams have fared with and without different players in the lineup. From the ACC, he has stats for Notre Dame, Maryland, North Carolina, NC State and Georgia Tech. Most surprising was Jordan Vandenberg‘s defensive impact: Without him in the lineup NC State’s defense is 11.1 points worse per 100 possessions. That’s a huge difference. By comparison, Georgia Tech is only 2.1 points per 100 possessions worse on defense without Robert Carter, and Notre Dame is 3.7 points per 100 possessions worse without Jerian Grant. The sample size for a lot of this is pretty low, but still great to see the trends.
5. Sports Illustrated: Seth Davis spends a good amount of time discussing Bruce Pearl to kick off his weekly “Hoop Thoughts” column. He notes several things of interest: (1) Pearl is a Boston College alumnus; (2) Pearl “has received several serious inquiries from Division I schools to be a head coach, but as he put it, ‘the opportunities were not at the level that I would be interested in.'” The first we already knew, but it is worth a reminder that Boston College sits at 5-13 on the year. The second point is interesting because Pearl’s show-cause doesn’t expire until August this year. That makes me think that the offers were from low-major schools hoping to hit a home run. And while the Eagles probably wouldn’t pay Pearl quite what Tennessee did (partially because his market value dropped with the NCAA business), that’s somewhere where “at the level” makes more sense. Food for thought.

1. Baltimore Sun: Jay Williams made a comment about how Maryland was playing “a little bit tight” and wondered if it had to do with Mark Turgeon‘s willingness to bench players who make mistakes. It’s an interesting thought. Certainly benching players means those players can’t produce, and if benching or coaching tirades are too frequent, I think they could affect a player’s confidence. But I doubt that’s a frequent problem. Now, micromanaging games from the sideline — that is a problem.
2. Winston-Salem Journal: Travis McKie‘s production is down a lot this season. A smart man once told me something that makes lots of sense. McKie thrived at the four. Now, forced to play the three, he’s struggling (at least in comparison to his superb sophomore campaign). Maybe it’s because of his defenders’ quickness. Maybe it’s because he is now forced to play farther from the basket. I don’t think Codi Miller-McIntyre’s offensive surge is part of the problem because McKie has always played with a high usage guard in CJ Harris (a very different player, but still), but the Demon Deacons need him to really come into his own to get over the next proverbial hump.
3. Hampton Roads Pilot: Malcolm Brogdon has quietly been Virginia’s most used player (ignoring Mike Tobey, who plays fewer than 20 minutes a game) — more than Joe Harris and Akil Mitchell. In addition to being the team’s top scorer in ACC play, Brogdon is the team’s second leading rebounder. His range still needs some work, but Virginia is a lot more dangerous as a team with multiple “go-to” guys beyond just Harris. They also need to finish near the top of the conference rankings in order to make the Big Dance. The Florida State sweep will look good, but a home win against Syracuse in the penultimate game would do wonders.
4. Chapelboro.com: Roy Williams is playing around a bit with lineups to try to keep his team fresh during games. Williams has always been one to use a large rotation, so that’s not surprising. Perhaps more surprising is that Coach K appears to be making his rotation deeper, playing 10 guys for decent minutes in Duke’s last couple of games. Over the last five games, the two ACC teams most set in their rotations were Boston College (34% played by its main rotation) and Syracuse (39.9% played by its starters). Remarkably Syracuse’s second most popular rotation played 32.1% of minutes (more than any team but the Eagles). In contrast Duke (10.9%) and Maryland (9.9%) changed rotations frequently. All data here courtesy of Ken Pomeroy.
5. Syracuse Post-Standard: Rakeem Christmas has improved dramatically on the offensive end during his time at Syracuse. He’s shooting a ridiculous 73.6 percent from the floor (thanks in large part to lots of dunks and put-backs), but he’s also become a serviceable player in the post. Not that you would make him the center of Syracuse’s offense or start up the Dream comparisons, but he’s no longer a player who can be completely ignored on offense. And that’s one reason Syracuse’s offense has made such a big step forward this season.

After the second weekend of conference play, the ACC’s historically best two programs were in trouble. North Carolina was all alone at the bottom of the standings with an 0-3 record, and Duke wasn’t in much better shape at 1-2. Since then, both schools’ Hall of Fame coaches have made some changes to try and turn things around. At least for one week, each coach has managed to stop the bleeding. Duke has now won two straight games — over Virginia (69-65) and N.C. State (95-60) — since Mike Krzyzewski made some lineup and style changes; and North Carolina got its first ACC win Saturday over Boston College (82-71) in the Tar Heels’ only game of the week, featuring a starting lineup change from Roy Williams. Below we will look at the problems that each team was confronting, what the coaches did to address those issues, and consider the results and future expectations as a result.

Duke

Problems. The Blue Devils’ defense simply has not been good enough, ranking outside of Ken Pomeroy’s top 100 in adjusted efficiency for much of the season. Opponents were scoring easily in the paint — perhaps not surprising with Duke’s lack of interior size. But even worse was Duke’s inability to counter that deficiency with good perimeter pressure, and the lack of player communication and teamwork in defensive help situations. Offensively, the Blue Devils were not playing well as a unit, often falling into the habit of one-on-one play with little ball movement.

Coach K is Playing More People to Keep Young Duke Team Fresh.(Photo:cbssports.com)

Adjustments. Krzyzewski and his staff decided to not only make a change in the starting lineup — inserting freshman Matt Jones — but they adjusted the entire rotation. As the TV commentators noted in each game, it was as if Duke was making hockey-style line changes in the first half. Both games followed the same pattern. About three minutes after the tip, five new Blue Devils checked in. A few minutes later, all the starters returned. Soon after that, it was another complete change. At that point in each contest — roughly 10-12 minutes in — all 11 scholarship players had logged at least three minutes of action. While the five-at-a-time substituting did not continue into the second half, Krzyzewski kept using his bench, with no player seeing more than 30 minutes in either contest. There was also a subtle stylistic change on each end of the court. The Blue Devils extended their defense further out than they had been, and they played more of a motion offense instead of mostly using set plays.

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Three Key Takeaways:

1. Pittsburgh is worthy of a higher ranking. With no great non-conference wins and that horribly slow loss to Cincinnati, there was good reason to question whether the Panthers deserved their advanced statistical love. But they played Syracuse even on the road, even owning a lead in the final three minutes. But even more impressive was that the Panthers took the lead after trailing by double figures in the second half. It’s not a secret at this point: Lamar Patterson is a special player and may be frontrunner for ACC Player of the Year if he keeps up the pace.
   

   Tyler Ennis got to the rim to seal Syracuse’s victory. (credit: Dick Blume / Syracuse Post-Standard)

2. Syracuse isn’t going undefeated in the ACC. The Orange might be perfect at home when it’s all said and done, but their late game rebounding is a huge concern. Pittsburgh missed a lot of foul shots and layups, and still almost won the game at the Carrier Dome. Someone will get hot from beyond the arc and torch Syracuse on the offensive glass. Even more importantly, the Orange only played seven players, and every starter logged more than 29 minutes. Jerami Grant, CJ Fair and Tyler Ennis each played the entire 40 minutes, which could cause problems if the Orange get in foul trouble.
3. Syracuse’s interior length bothered Pittsburgh on offense. Part of the problem is that the Panthers’ front line doesn’t have a lot of height. But multiple times Pittsburgh ended up having to force a jumper late in the shot clock because a guard was met by Rakeem Christmas or Baye Keita in the paint. That said, Talib Zanna had a couple of really good offensive possessions operating near the elbow, and finished with an efficient double-double.

Star of the Game: Tyler Ennis, Syracuse. Ennis scored six of Syracuse’s last eight points to close the game, including the big shot to retake the lead. He finished with 16 points (a team high) on eight shots with three assists and one turnover in just shy of 40 minutes. Jim Boeheim made it clear after the game that they opened the floor (keeping CJ Fair and Trevor Cooney on the wing) to let Ennis work. That’s a lot of responsibility for a freshman, but you never felt like Ennis was rattled. Even when Pittsburgh deflected his pass late in the second half, he stayed calm and got it back.

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